{"id":245832,"date":"2026-03-31T23:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245832\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:33:07","slug":"trump-signs-executive-order-limiting-mail-in-ballots-california-leaders-say-theyll-fight-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245832\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump signs executive order limiting mail-in ballots; California leaders say they’ll fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump signed an executive order<\/a> Tuesday purporting to place new federal controls on voting by mail in states such as California, repeating his long-held but unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots are a source of widespread fraud in U.S. elections.<\/p>\n

California leaders immediately responded with promises to fight the order in court. They said mail ballots are a safe and secure method for voting relied on by millions of Californians, that Trump\u2019s order infringes on the state\u2019s constitutional right to administer elections as it sees fit, and that it amounts to an \u201cillegal power grab\u201d ahead of midterm elections in which his party is poised to suffer substantial losses.<\/p>\n

The order directs the United States Postal Service to take control of mail balloting by designing new envelopes with special bar codes that will allow the federal government to ensure that such ballots go out only to eligible voters, and that only eligible voters return such ballots.<\/p>\n

It requires states to submit to the USPS process if they plan to use the federal mail system for sending or receiving ballots, and to submit to the USPS lists of eligible voters in advance of such ballots passing through the mail system.<\/p>\n

It also requires the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Social Security Administration to \u201ccompile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those lists will be drawn from federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records and \u201cother relevant Federal databases,\u201d and the USPS will be barred from transmitting ballots that do not match those lists, the order says.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecure ballot envelope identifiers provide a reliable, auditable mechanism to enforce Federal law without unduly burdening or infringing on the rights of eligible voters,\u201d the order reads. \u201cUnique ballot envelope identifiers, such as bar codes, enable confirmation that only citizens receive and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump \u2014 who recently voted by mail himself<\/a> in Florida \u2014 framed the order as a solution to \u201cmassive cheating\u201d in U.S. elections currently, which he did not back up with evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It\u2019s horrible what\u2019s going on,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to make sure that mail-in ballots are safe secure and accurate,\u201d said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who appeared alongside Trump and whose agency the order requires to be involved in the coordination of the new voting measures.<\/p>\n

California officials blasted the president for attacking and undermining election integrity, rather than shoring it up, and said they would fight the order from taking effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s Executive Order marks a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in his ongoing attacks on our elections. The power to regulate elections belongs to the States and to Congress \u2014 he has no role to play. We blocked his previous Executive Order on elections in court, and we are prepared to stop him again,\u201d said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that President Trump and Congressional Republicans see the writing on the wall \u2014 that they are likely to lose in the upcoming midterms \u2014 and they are pushing to make it harder for people to vote,\u201d Bonta added. \u201cWe won\u2019t stand idly by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), in a statement to The Times, said Trump\u2019s actions were \u201ca clear and present threat to our democracy,\u201d that he will \u201cuse every tool I can to stop him,\u201d and that he expects \u201cimmediate legal challenges in order to protect our free and fair elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of focusing on lowering the cost of energy, groceries, and health care, Donald Trump is desperately attempting to take over and rig our elections and avoid accountability in November. This executive order is a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power,\u201d said Padilla, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President and the Department of Homeland Security have no authority to commandeer federal elections or direct the independent Postal Service to undermine mail and absentee voting that nearly 50 million Americans relied on in 2024,\u201d he said. \u201cA decade of lies about election fraud does not change the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the middle of an unauthorized war abroad and an escalating authoritarian crackdown by ICE here at home, Trump is attempting another illegal power grab,\u201d Padilla said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re challenging it,\u201d Gov. Gavin Newsom posted to X, above a video of Trump announcing the order. \u201cSee you in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

A vast majority of Californians vote by mail. In the state\u2019s 2025 special election on Proposition 50, the state\u2019s mid-decade redistricting measure, nearly 89% of votes were cast by mail, according to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber\u2019s office \u2014 or nearly 10.3 million out of about 11.6 million votes cast. <\/p>\n

Trump has long criticized mail-in ballots \u2014 without evidence \u2014 as a source of fraud and a factor in his losing the 2020 election to President Biden, which he still contends was illegitimate.<\/p>\n

Election experts, voting rights advocates, local elections officials<\/a> and other California leaders have all dismissed those claims as unfounded and inaccurate. They have also been preparing for Trump to act to curtail such voting.<\/p>\n

Padilla previously warned colleagues that he would force a vote<\/a> on any effort by Trump to declare a national emergency in order to seize control of this year\u2019s midterm elections from the states, forcing them to either co-sign on the power grab or resist it.<\/p>\n

Critics of mail ballots have also been actively working to end or curtail the practice. Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case in which the Republican Party challenged a Mississippi law that allows ballots to be accepted and counted if they arrive up to five days after election day.<\/p>\n

During those arguments, the court\u2019s six conservatives sounded ready<\/a> to rule that federal law requires ballots to be received by election day in order to be counted as legal. <\/p>\n

Weber, California\u2019s top elections official, has warned that attacks on mail-in voting risked undermining a system the state has spent years building around universal mail voting.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s executive order is the latest front in a years-long campaign he has led attacking the integrity of U.S. elections \u2014 which has contributed to a steep decline in voter trust in U.S. elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Trump said his order was drafted by \u201cgreat legal minds,\u201d and will survive any legal challenges unless \u201crogue\u201d judges rule against it inappropriately. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to have honest voting in our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, argued otherwise in a post Tuesday, noting that an earlier executive order purporting to place new federal controls on elections was blocked in court, and \u201cthis one is likely to fare no better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put this in plain terms: the order would use the USPS, which is not under the direct control of the President, to interfere with a state\u2019s lawful transmission of ballots. If the state does not comply with these rules, federal law would purport to interfere with a state\u2019s conduct of its own elections,\u201d Hasen wrote. \u201cThe President does not have the authority to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday purporting to place new federal controls on voting by mail in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7167,7,9,37829,8,109948,3622,204,104850,109946,9663,18535,9355,6283,225,1519,78469,109947],"class_list":{"0":"post-245832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-ballot","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-leader","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-chief-election-official","14":"tag-court","15":"tag-election","16":"tag-eligible-voter","17":"tag-executive-order-tuesday","18":"tag-mail","19":"tag-mail-in-ballot","20":"tag-order","21":"tag-president","22":"tag-state","23":"tag-trump","24":"tag-u-s-election","25":"tag-usps-list"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}